Nearly all restaurants serve iced beverages. In many of these restaurants, standard fountain-type dispensers are used to dispense beverages into a cup. These dispensers may have a plurality of spouts, each spout being dedicated to a certain type of beverage. These beverages include various flavors of carbonated beverages, both regular and diet, water, juice drinks and the like. Both beverage and ice, usually cubes or crushed, are placed into the cup before being served to the customer. A quantity of ice is typically placed into the cup before the beverage is dispensed so that splashing is minimized.
The dispensing of beverage and ice into a cup may typically be a manually intensive operation. Specifically, restaurant personnel select an empty cup of the desired size from a stack. Next, ice may be taken out of a bin, either with a scoop or by using the cup as a scoop. The restaurant personnel may then have to adjust the quantity of ice which was placed in the cup, either by adding more ice if not enough was placed into the cup or by taking out some ice if too much was placed into the cup. If too much ice is left in the cup and served to the customer, the customer may become dissatisfied in not getting enough beverage. If too little ice is placed into the cup, the ice may melt quickly and the beverage may not be cool enough thereby also causing customer dissatisfaction. Also, ice hoppers are usually positioned at or below waist level, requiring restaurant personnel to bend over frequently to retrieve the ice.
After an appropriate quantity of ice is placed into a cup, the cup must be properly positioned under a separate beverage dispenser. Many of these dispensers have a lever connected to a spout. The cup is pressed against the lever and beverage begins to become dispensed from the spout. When an appropriate amount of beverage has been dispensed, the cup is brought out of contact with the lever and the spout is closed.
Several systems have been described for dispensing ice in predetermined quantities. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,226,269, for example, a vertically-oriented delivery duct for ice contains one or more control elements which are selectively insertable into the delivery duct to correspondingly adjust the amount of ice delivered by a concurrent opening of a lower closure member of the delivery duct. These control elements comprise one or more tines for minimizing crushing and breaking of ice in the delivery duct. A storage hopper for ice is located above the delivery duct, and contains an auger type agitator for assisting in refilling the delivery duct. The same system is also disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,386,640, a continuation of the patent just described.
A similar ice dispensing system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,496,087, in which a delivery passage is closed at a selected level by one of a series of dividers along the chute. A closure normally closing the delivery end of the delivery passage is removed to permit the ice in the passage between the delivery and the actuated divider to be dispensed. An ice storage bin is located above the delivery passage and an agitator is operated for a preselected period of time each time ice is delivered from the delivery passage. The agitator is also activated even if no ice has been dispensed for a long period of time to prevent conglomeration of ice in the bin.
These systems, however, are only used to dispense ice and do not provide for the dispensing of beverage in conjunction with the ice. Therefore, restaurant personnel must place a cup to be filled at the ice dispenser and then carry it to a beverage spout.
A combination ice/beverage dispenser is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,590,975, in which an automatic beverage dispensing assembly includes two subassemblies. The first assembly includes an automatic cup dropper and the second subassembly includes an automatic beverage dispensing means and an automatic conveyor. An automatic ice dispenser may be added. The ice dispenser consists of an inclined chute which is connected at its top end to an ice compartment and at its lower end to an opening through which ice is dispensed into a cup. The chute may contain three removable stop members, the stop member nearest the opening being normally closed. If a large or small cup is inserted, one of the appropriate stop members is energized. The stop member nearest the opening is then opened and ice caught intermediate this stop member and the energized stop member is dispensed. Next, the beverage dispensing valve assembly then dispenses the beverage for a predetermined period of time depending upon whether a particular drink ordered was a small or large size. Such a device is not suitable for a plurality of combination ice/beverage dispensing stations located side by side, for example, and in close relationship so that only a relatively small area is occupied.
A need exists for a method and apparatus that dispenses both ice and beverage efficiently for use in a quick-service (fast food) restaurant that is compact and has a plurality of ice/beverage dispensing stations.
A need exists for a method and apparatus that automatically dispenses both ice and beverage to a cup at a single location that is capable of handling cups of widely varying sizes.
A need also exists for an ice and beverage dispenser that utilizes the force of ice falling into a cup to maintain the cup at a proper position for filling with beverage.
A need also exists for a method and apparatus for dispensing ice and beverage that reduces the time it takes for restaurant personnel to dispense such beverages.